I'm so cross

[Yolandafarthing]

Just need somewhere to vent. My local parent's Facebook group had a post from a woman complaining she has hardly any help from her husband WRT housework/childcare and asking if others struggle too. Cue loads of other women commiserating.

Then the bloody admin shuts the comments on the thread down, because "it feels pretty negative to men, and I know that many of us have fantastic, pro-active and supportive partners, many of whom go to work as well as parent, and some of us are two Dad or two Mum families. If you swap the word 'man' for other descriptors like ethnicity or religion, it becomes clear that sweeping statements are unfair and inaccurate....I don't want [group name] to be a place where we perpetuate sexist stereotypes."

I'm fuming. This is a woman speaking. A woman silencing other women, because poor men.

Thoughts?

Women are oppressed. That is fact. Not stereotype.

Where are you based? If you are in Saudi Arabia, then yes, possibly.
If you are in the UK, then no. You are only oppressed by someone if you let them. We have the same legal rights, the same choices, opportunities, the same legal protection than men, and frankly we do have it better.

No one is saying that abuse doesn't exist, but quoting a case of domestic violence is the same as saying "all parents are child abusers" because some kids are abused by their parents.

Well, while I agree with some points, you have no business in stereotyping me or my husband. We are an equal partnership, which is how it should be in my opinion. Your experiences do not necessarily relate to mine and vice versa.

Some men are arseholes, some are not.
Some women are arseholes, some are not.

I hate when you see adverts etc suggesting that men are idiots, something to be mocked or laughed at (usually because they 'can't' do some domestic task) in the same way I'd hate it if it were women. I'd also be pretty pissed off if I saw a thread/post berating women and a bunch of men joining in with that. I see no reason why it should be OK just because it's the other way round.

That definition is contested
As a radical feminist I would argue that true equality is not possible under patriarchy and until patriarchy is over thrown feminism will not achieve its goals

We have the same legal rights, the same choices, opportunities, the same legal protection than men, and frankly we do have it better

No we don't

And we clearly disagree on the meaning of feminism.

I hate when you see adverts etc suggesting that men are idiots, something to be mocked or laughed at (usually because they 'can't' do some domestic task) in the same way I'd hate it if it were women

Yeah that's shit but it still serves the patriarchy. Teaching boys and men that thy are shit at domestic tasks and teaching girls and women that they excel at them serves the interests of the patriarchy

Oh, I had wondered about the vile misogynist comments. Relieved it has been moved here, that explains it.

Agree with RiverTam, somewhat, the idiots out there need educating, but I can understand that Yolanda doesn't want to deal with their bullshit.

If men feel so bloody oppressed, no one hinders them from fucking walking away and living on a lonely island somewhere. Because men are not oppressed and not exploited, no one will stop them.
But that's exactly the reason they don't leave.
Don't even go and become monks. (Vatican is and will probably forever be ruled by men! Why not go there, you misogyists? Oh, that's right, you still want to fuck women. Despite feeling so bloody oppressed. Yeah, right.)

you have no business in stereotyping me or my husband. We are an equal partnership

Nobody is doing that

Whenever I read a woman attacking feminists for "stereotyping her husband" or something, I think: The lady doth protest too much.

Why would she have any need to repeat, at nauseam, what a lovely bloke her husband is, if he actually was? No need to convince yourself and others of something by repeating, repeating, repeating it if it is actually true and everyone can see.

We have the same legal rights, the same choices, opportunities, the same legal protection than men, and frankly we do have it better

No we don't

Please feel free to quote any legal rule stating that men have more rights or privilege than women.

FFS. Let me put this simply.

STRUCTURAL inequality is not individual. It is built into the walls of the institutions around us, including the domestic home, and into the assumptions about gender that people make. It is there in the inequality of pay between men and women and in the way some men have been educated to be completely hopeless around the house or with the basic functions of childcare. Statistics show that women do disproportionate amounts of social reproductive work, even where both parties are working equal hours in waged work.

Just because there are individual exceptions to structural inequality, e.g. some men who earn less than female colleagues doing the same job, some men who are good around the house, does not mean that the structural inequality doesn't exist.

OP, I appreciate that women are oppressed somewhat and think it's great you're passionate about fighting back against that. But to suggest men are not oppressed is quite harmful and ignorant. May I suggest you watch The Red Pill. Men and women aren't on different levels (men up here ^, women down here v), but more on different ends of the same level (men over here )
Some women claim men dont understand their issues, whilst completely dismissing that men feel women don't understand their issues. Science proves that the distance from point A to B is the exact same distance from point B to point A.

The issue was perhaps that OP said it was a parent's group that happens to have a lot of single mums. Not a women's group, not a mum's group - a local parenting group.

So it stands to reason that some of those parents will be men, and perhaps the people running that group would rather the dads in the group didn't feel alienated. There are dads who need support online too, so it's probably more that a big thread slagging off men wasn't appropriate for that particular group.

The red pill? Are you serious with that MRA bullshit?

Adalind - I'm guessing from your response that you haven't actually watched it then?

"Science proves that the distance from point A to B is the exact same distance from point B to point A."

See my point above about structural inequality. There is no symmetry of power relations between men and women, making statements like this a nonsense.

To say that women suffer from unequal power relations more than men is NOT to deny that men can suffer (and, indeed, that they can suffer from the same inequalities). It's just that their position is structurally different.

Putting aside all the feminist stuff, the plain fact is that some women are enablers of men who do fuck all. Right from the beginning they don't insist on equal sharing of housework etc and it becomes worse with each subsequent child, making it more and more difficult for the woman to walk away from the relationship.

Of course it's the men who are in the wrong in these situations but the women should take some responsibility too for enabling them. There are constantly threads on MN describing the above and it's a little late to start moaning and to expect the man to change after 10/20 years of doing nothing and after two or more children.

Sadly, too many feminist love being victims and blame "society" for their own failure. It's easier to complain about the system, than being active and successful, and resent others for your own inadequacy. Women comfortable in our society are the rule, not the exception! We are very very lucky. Unless you are talking about a few private cases, (illegal and not acceptable), oppression is in your head.

Again, (and again) no one is saying that abuse doesn't exist but like child abuse it's not the rule!

"To say that women suffer from unequal power relations more than men is NOT to deny that men can suffer (and, indeed, that they can suffer from the same inequalities). It's just that their position is structurally different."

That's exactly my point?

MN has clearly been infiltrate by MRAs going by the first page of posts.

See, I don't understand why people who are putting forward a different view, perhaps trying to understand the other person's point of view by questioning and reasoning, have to be MRAs.

Based on the OP, it really wasn't clear imo. It sounded like a 'discussion' (like many here on mn) where women moan about how useless and feckless their partners are...

a post from a woman complaining she has hardly any help from her husband WRT housework/childcare and asking if others struggle too. Cue loads of other women commiserating.

Then the bloody admin shuts the comments on the thread down, because "it feels pretty negative to men, and I know that many of us have fantastic, pro-active and supportive partners...

and posters were just saying, hang on it's not unreasonable to remove such a conversation.

But if there were other women on the thread trying to educate those in these terrible relationships and show them that there are plenty of equal relationships and life doesn't have to be like that, then yes, I think it should have stayed.

But the first few posters on this thread didn't have that information at the time. I don't think they (or I if I'm included in that sweeping statement) are MRAs.

Please feel free to quote any legal rule stating that men have more rights or privilege than women.

One word: Primogeniture.
It is even exempt from the new genderism laws. Younger sons inherit over eldest daughters, EVEN if the eldest daughter transes herself.

Men don't need to make a law to rape women. They just need to create a society where men are not send to prison for raping. You are so fucking naive it is unbelievable.

Men oppress and exploit women without needing any fucking laws for it, because men are on average bigger and stronger than women, and also because they used to have laws, that mean that women are still socialised into servitude.

Female handmaidens who serve and worship patriarchy and believe they are "equal" when ^women cannot even talk about our oppression without being censored" are the best proof of it.

Oh, and those of the misogynists on here who are so friendly with the MRAs, can you please go and tell the MGTOWs that they CAN fucking bloodly leave, and so finally DO so?
We here on the feminist boards cannot wait for the day that a dozen (don't think there's more of them, they're so bonkers) up and leave and live on some remote island without internet connection.

Whereas if women try to live away from men, or even stay away from men for a fucking week, men go and try to invade our space.

In that I mean - if we think men can't empathise with how we feel as women in modern society, then we HAVE to accept that we can't empathise with how men feel in modern society. They may not have the exact same difficulties as us, but that's because we aren't the same. It doesn't mean they don't suffer in equal measure for different reasons, that we as women don't endure.

No, it isn't Bax, because your post describes a horizontal system of power relations (men and women on the same level), and denies structural inequality by saying that there is a symmetry (which is the point about the distance between points A and B being identical). Structural inequality arguments deny both of those things.

Jesus, this isn't hard!!

I think it's the wrong place for her to complain about her husband's inadequacies. She's taken to a parent Facebook group and assumed there aren't any men on there. The group is for parents, not just women. She's just told the whole community what she thinks of her husband too without him being able to defend himself I'd guess.

I would imagine the admin had complaints from both men and women about it and felt they needed to take the thread down to stop it continuing.

Honestly, if I saw someone post that on a parent group I'd think wtf?

AdalindSchade - thank you for putting it so eloquently. It drives me mad when people use the "Oh, that doesn't happen to me so your argument is invalid" line of argument!

"This is class analysis

Like when we say that black people face more barriers to high status jobs than white people, or have poorer university acceptance figures etc. The existence of black people in top jobs or at Cambridge doesn't disprove this.
So women as a class are oppressed by men as a class. Men hold the vast majority of positions of power and wealth. Men do far less household drudgery. Men commit the overwhelming majority of domestic violence, sexual assault and child sexual abuse. Men earn more than women. All these things are facts. Just because your Nigel doesn't oppress you does not mean that women are not oppressed by men on a structural level in our society."